Creating a brighter future for underprivileged children and their families in Sri Lanka

We have secured generous funding from the University's Cascade Grants programme to enable us to complete volunteering work for the Rosie May Foundation 's family strengthening programme Project Hope in Sri Lanka. The condition is that we raise £1,000 of our own on this site: only then can we bring our vision of bringing financial stability and a brighter future for young families in crisis to life.

The team behind this project are four students from the University of Nottingham’s School of Politics: Chloe Richardson, Nesrin Ahmet, Shivani Thakrar and Kilian Bachmair. We share a common goal: to make a difference to the lives of people who have not been fortunate enough to be born in a prosperous country like the UK.

Our project will be running for three weeks during the months of June and July, and will take the form of an internship with the Rosie May Foundation, a registered UK charity from Nottingham.

The Rosie May Foundation works in Sri Lanka and Nepal to protect vulnerable children and prevent them from being torn apart from their families through poverty. Its mission is to empower young girls and women in underprivileged circumstances and to strengthen families in crisis through education.

One of the projects the foundation runs in Sri Lanka is Project Hope . It seeks to help single mothers at risk of losing their children become economically independent by training them in useful skills that will enable them to set up their own businesses. The training areas include the production of incense sticks, sewing and rug-making.

Woman participating in  incense stick production training

What will we do?

We will complete our internship close to the town of Ambalangoda in South-Western Sri Lanka, where Hope House , the project headquarters, are based. Our task will be to compile an impact report to assess the effectiveness of Project Hope and the extent to which the project’s objectives are met. This entails making suggestions for changes and improvements to the project to be able to support even more single mothers and their families with the given resources.

Further tasks and objectives include:

• Working with the Rosie May Foundation staff in Sri Lanka to monitor and evaluate the success of existing projects
• Visiting homes of families to assess their current living situation
• Compiling detailed case studies on family profiles to assess the mental wellbeing of mothers and children
• Other duties such as participating in English lessons in the after-school club

Hope House, headquarters of the Rosie May Foundation's Project Hope , where we will be completing our project

Our Project's Impact

Our work will have a direct, long-lasting impact on families in the region of Ambalangoda in South-Western Sri Lanka, where Project Hope is based. As of today, 214 single mothers families have been helped by Project Hope and 600 children at risk of being separated from their single parents were saved from institutional care.

The Rosie May Foundation plans to upscale the programme over the next 18 months, such that an additional 50 families at risk of separation can be reached by the programme.

When compiling the impact report, we will also be suggesting improvements to Project Hope, to increase efficiency and reach more people. We aim to make a key contribution to upscaling the programme.

The average family being helped by Project Hope consists of a single mother with two young children. This means that about 150 mothers and children will benefit over the course of the coming 18 months.

However, our work will make a lasting impact beyond the next 18 months. It will help the Rosie May Foundation make structural improvements to Project Hope and bring the benefit of its programme to many more people in the coming years..

Where will the money go?

Since we are volunteering, we will not be paid for our work by the Rosie May Foundation. Funds raised will be allocated as follows:

Costs per person

Return flight to Bandaranaike International Airport (CMB) -  £500

Accommodation and food - £400

Vaccinations and health precautions - £60

Travel Insurance and ETA - £40

Subtotal: £1000

Total : £1000 * 4 people = £4000

Any unanticipated under-spend of funds will be donated to the Rosie May Foundation.

Help us succeed!

We would love for you to support us with a donation, so we can make our project a success. As a way of saying thank you, we have great rewards lined up to get you involved in the project! Have a look at the rewards section at the top of the page.

However, you don't need to give money to help us succeed! Please share this project with anyone you think would support us – on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, by email, telephone, in a chat over the fence or on your blog. In fact, share it with everyone you know as we think it's a great idea, and the more people who know about it, the more likely we are to make this work out brilliantly.

Follow the Rosie May Foundation online to find out more about the charity’s work and about our project:

Website: http://www.rosie-may.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rosiemayfoundation/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/rosiemayhome?lang=en

If you would like to find out more, please email: kilian.bachmair@nottingham.ac.uk